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I think this can be traced back to the Bo Xilai scandal.

Xilai was an extremely popular up and coming politician who used two techniques that unsettled the leadership. Populism, which in China still reminds people of the murderous Cultural Revolution; and Maoist style police state tactics in his domain.

But what had everybody puzzled was how his city was just economically going gangbusters. Always winning, never losing. He seemed to have the magic touch and looked like a good prospect for eventual supreme leader.

And then the leadership found out how he did this. In particular, he had a billionaire foreign backer who was artificially propping him up, hoping that eventually he would rule China.

Your friend and mine, George Soros.

Soros actually had the chutzpah to think that he could become the power behind the throne for all of China.

It goes without saying that when the Chinese leadership figured this out, it made them very, very angry. Murderously angry.

So anyone and everyone connected to Bo Xilai has been purged, and a lot of them probably executed for the Chinese equivalent of high treason.

The bottom line is that, if Zhou Yongkang had any connection to Bo Xilai, and he probably did, his name is mud.